I added this to my list purely because of how much we loved Paul Newman’s performances in the previous films that we’ve watched and this is considered one of his notable works. At first glance this seems like a fairly standard story of an up and coming pool player who wants to challenge the most famous pool player in America and as such it ought to follow the familiar trajectory of sports films. Yet it turned out to be much more complex and psychologically deep than that.

Fast Eddie is a talented pool player who makes a living hustling in pool halls with his partner and manager Charlie. They make their way to Ames where Eddie challenges the legendary player Minnesota Fats. For a while Eddie pulls ahead but after Fats consults with Bert Gordon, a professional gambler, Eddie loses it all at the end of a grueling 25 hours worth of games. Dispirited, Eddie walks out on Charlie and becomes aimless. He meets and falls in with an alcoholic woman, Sarah, who has problems of her own and moves in with her. While earning small amounts of money in pool halls, Eddie meets Bert again who offers to be his banker but in exchange demands a very large share of his winnings. He also asserts that Eddie lost not because he lacked talent but because he lacked character in comparison to Fats. At first Eddie turns down the offer but he changes his mind after some gangsters beat him up and break his thumbs.

We’ve all watched sports films and we all know the familiar trajectory of the underdog losing at first only to emerge triumphant at the end after many trials and hard work. This is also why I tend to dislike sports films. Superficially, The Hustler seems to adhere to this formula but it is far more complex than that. This is due to the depth of the characterization afforded to every one of its characters, not just Eddie himself, but also Bert, Sarah and even Fats. The psychological portraits that it paints of each of them is impressively deep and strangely seems superior even to the novel it was adapted from. It’s complex enough that it isn’t easy to understand what is actually going in inside the characters and there is room for differing interpretations but I think the key here is that the film isn’t about the game of pool at all.

It’s about growing and maturing as a person but that means something different in the context of each of the characters. Eddie needs to overcome his obsession with chasing thrills and the self-destructive tendencies this entails. Sarah needs to get her own neediness and alcoholism under control. But to Bert, being a winner means being willing to sacrifice everything else for the sake of victory. Fats seems to be someone who has fully matured as a person, being perfectly aware of when exactly he can or cannot win. This interpretation isn’t perfect. Director Robert Rossen seems intent on making the pool playing scene salacious and immoral. Bert’s insistence at the end that Eddie still owes him a share of his winnings seems completely unreasonable and is just plain thuggery. It’s so blatantly unfair that everyone should have banded against him.

Nonetheless this film is far more sophisticated that I thought it would be. Black and white photography and dated dialogue aside, it feels very modern and deserves its place as a Hollywood classic.